Posted
Thursday, December 19, 2013 |
by- MUTUMA MATHIU

Leadership isn’t about putting people down or showing how useless they are

I am not really exercised by President Kenyatta’s remarks about newspapers and meat wrapping.

President Uhuru Kenyatta gives his speech at the celebration of Mashujaa Day at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi, on October 20, 2013. PHOTO : Denish Ochieng

ADVERTISEMENT

I am a meat wrapper.

Actually, I am the grandfather of meat wrappers, a grand warrior of the order of meat wrappers.

Not only am I a meat wrapper, I am also a butcher, a card carrying member of the butcher’s union.

So, not only do I wrap meat, I am also involved in dispatching animals to the next world, in promoting them to higher glory.

This is not a joke. I have really worked as a butcher, the proud slaughterer of some of the best turkey; stuffed and ready basted.

So unlike my colleagues in journalism, I am not really exercised by President Uhuru Kenyatta’s recommendation that newspapers are very good for meat wrapping.

First, I am not intimidated by Mr Kenyatta or his strong opinions about my profession. I too have mine about his.

I am a very happy, free-born Kenyan tribesman, I wear the furs of citizenship with ease. I don’t need the approval of another man to practise the trade that feeds my wife and children. It’s my right as an honest man.

Secondly, as a good company man, I can advise a customer how to get the best from my products, but it is not my place to dictate how they should consume them.

In other words, it is the buyer’s right to use his newspaper to wrap meat. What he does with his newspaper is his business.

In other words, if you go to Germany and buy a 2014 Mercedes G Class AMG, with exquisite hand-crafted interior, and you decide that your favourite pig will be sleeping in it, we can privately think you are a fool, but we can really do nothing about it. It’s your car.

(Let’s insert a hygiene note here: meat is actually no longer wrapped in newspapers. It is wrapped in plain, brown paper. This is because a newspaper is handled by many people and is unlikely to be clean enough to package food. But I guess you can always go to the butchery and insist that you want yours wrapped in newspapers.)

On and off, I have studied and find three leaders interesting: Chairman Mao Zedong, Nelson Mandela and Mwai Kibaki.

Mao was an idealist and a consummate despot. What do you think it takes to bend a nation of a billion people to your will and to motivate hundreds of millions of peasants to work their little backsides off for your big dreams?